INDONESIA: Tweeters fly in the face of censorship law

Friday, February 10, 2012

Item: 7816

Kate Lamb

JAKARTA (The Sydney Morning Herald / Joyo News / Pacific Media Watch): After pulling the plug on more than a million online porn sites, Indonesia's Communications Minister, Tifatul Sembiring, has now set his sights on Twitter.

In a country known for its voracious online appetite, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology says it will target and block anonymous and offensive accounts on the popular social networking site.

Exactly what the minister means by offensive tweets remains to be seen, but in accordance with Indonesia's controversial Information and Electronic Law, online users can be charged with blasphemy, fraud, gambling, threats and pornography.

Such could be the fate of Alexander Aan, who was arrested in Sumatra in late January for posting the message "God does not exist" on his Facebook page. Those in violation of the law face between seven and 12 years in prison.

"Sites like Twitter are very important for a country like Indonesia," a renowned Indonesian filmmaker, Joko Anwar, who has more than 195,000 followers on his Twitter account, says.

"We have reached a certain level of freedom, but we still need more.

Taboo to criticise
In 2009, most people still thought it was taboo to criticise the government ... but now people are talking about it on sites like Twitter and they are becoming more and more aware.''

Despite living in an archipelagic nation plagued by poor infrastructure, Indonesians are the second-highest users of Facebook and third-highest users of Twitter globally.

Pacific Media Watch is compiled for the Pacific Media Centre as a regional media freedom and educational resource by a network of journalists, students, stringers and commentators.
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